


Tomorrow is an Augmented Yesterday

by fresne



Series: Voyages of the Bakerstreet [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Other, References to experimentation on humans, Torture, WWIII, death camps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 06:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: When a freak accident has the Bakerstreet traveling back in time to the mid-twenty-first century, they may be trapped forever. They'll need to go down to the Earth during it's most genocidal era in its history and try to find the materials they'll need to survive.





	1. Anthea POV

Anthea stood across the street and watched Colonel Green's men boil like ants up and down Bayswater. Rounded up old Mrs. Groundling, on account of her harelip. Kenny, who'd taken his share of radiation at the Battle of Rye back in the day.

She watched as they broke into the hidden attic apartment in the dome over Whiteleys. They dragged her brother, Billy holding his son, her nephew, Connor, out onto the street. Called him an Auggie. A dog. Genderless bitch. Made barking noises that had Connor trying to silently disappear into his mother's arms. They were both shoved into the van with the others.

Anthea wanted to rush forward and tell them to get away from them, but then she'd be joining Billy in the van. She needed to stay on the outside if she was going to find a way to get him out.

Groceries for Connor in her bag along with some new books for Billy to read. An old Sci Fi, Children of Dune, from back when people still dreamed.

She showed the Colonel Green's men her ident card. Certified clean of Augmentation and other genetic defects.

Fake.

Good fake, but a fake.

It just so happened that her Augmentations weren't so obvious as Billy's. But it would take just a drop of Augmented blood for Green to kill her, and with her grandfather being Beowulf of Newcastle, one of Khan Brittanus' crew, she had more than a drop.

She went to King George's across the way and waited. Chatted up Green's goons when they came in for a piss and a pint.

Found out where they were taking Billy and Connor, and she got chills. Reeducation camp in Namur across the channel. She'd been hoping for the one in Cornwall or the Dells. She'd heard the security there was for shite. But Namur was high security. Colonel Green liked to run experiments out of Namur. 

She couldn't think about that. She needed to focus on how she was getting them out.


	2. Sherlock POV

Sherlock looked mechanically through Lucy's research.

"Don't you think it'll work?" she said worriedly.

"Your conclusions are sound." He looked up. "There's still considerable research to be done. Starfleet Command will never agree for us to go to trial within the next year. Perhaps, five."

She shifted Eva from her left to her right breast. "Bihr's bondmates have put in a request to stay onboard."

Dull.

As if he didn't know that the Andorians were staying on board. Although, the news that Sh'Alaack had a first name was new.

Dull.

Everything had been dull for the last three months. Since John had seen the monster that lived within Sherlock. They had not had dinner. Hardly spoken during briefings. John never dropped in on the bridge. Even his scent had a slightly bitter almond element to it. While their longest conversations were in the holodeck.

They were freeing in a way. Sherlock could say whatever he felt without consequence. If at a remove and from some of other version of him's lips. And admittedly, many of John's sexual fantasies called for little in the way of conversation.

John's scenario of being fucked in various positions on Sherlock's command couch while simulacrums of their crewmates walked around them had been odd. It certainly made walking onto the bridge viscerally awkward.

At least he'd stopped deleting them, which made preparation slightly easier.

All Sherlock had to do was be there before John arrived, have the holodeck display a simulation of an empty room, and completely betray of his best friend. He couldn't be sure if he still held that position for John, but John retained that and more for Sherlock.

When he opened his eyes, Lucy wasn't there. There was a cup of tea. Cold. Some biscuits.  Hudson had been by. Somewhat worse, there were new orders from Starfleet Command. Since they had completed their shakedown cruise, they were to return to Earth for shore leave. There was some dull material about Sherlock completing review cycles on personnel to recommend promotions where appropriate, which was dull. He forwarded the information to Hudson.

What if John left? What if he decided to get away from Sherlock?

Sherlock was walking without even pausing. He went to John's door. "John! John!"

The door opened. John was holding cup of tea. "What is it?"

"You shouldn't transfer." Sherlock had a strange sense of déjà vu, but quickly placed it. He had had this exact same conversation with John nearly a year before.

He didn't come into the room. He couldn't. Not since the other him, the animal half of himself had come into John's quarters and repeatedly… had… forced him to… betrayed his trust."

"I'm not planning on transferring," said John. He ran his hand through his hair. A sign of nervousness. His scent had a slight sharpness. Distress at Sherlock's presence. "After all, I have a year of training to do."

"Ah." Of course. John's training wasn't complete. He'd stay at least a year longer.

"You know this is silly. Come inside. Have a cuppa."

Sherlock walked into the room. He was unable to look at the bed or the narrow space next to the bed or the bathroom or the floor in front of the bathroom, but the table in front of the couch was fine. He accepted a cup of tea from John. He drank it quietly. The silence was pleasant.

Broken beautifully when John said, "It's been awhile since I heard you play your violin. Maybe meet up tomorrow in hydroponics? Eighteen hundred hours?"

Hydroponics did have beautiful acoustics.

Sherlock agreed and made a hasty retreat certain the situation could not possibly be improved upon. In any case, he had to determine the perfect set list.

Hudson made him do her review. "Dear, I can't do my own evaluation. Well, I could, but you should do at least one." He grumbled and did it. Item three was musical notation.

He arrived in hydroponics to find something of a crowd, which was annoying. Lucy was there with Eva.  Sh'Alaack was there with her bondmates, and their two infants.

John was not there. He raced in. "Sorry, sorry. It's just… I told a few people. Who I guess told a few people." Sherlock didn't care. John was there.

He took up a place next to the Varuvian Lillies, rosined his bow, and started Sarasate's Carmen Fantasie. He's just begun Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro, when the Bakerstreet suddenly lurched. For fifteen seconds, the artificial gravity failed. Everyone floated up and then were suddenly slammed down as gravity returned.

Sherlock twisted in the air to prevent any damage coming to his violin.

"How did you do that?" John gapped at him. "You were eighteen feet in the air."

"It's a handmade antique," said Sherlock, because that was something that John could understand, returning his violin to its case. They raced for the bridge.

"Report?" he said, as the doors opened in front of him. "Or as is typical, is everyone in ignorance?"

"Sherlock," said John warningly.

Hudson said, "There's no reason to get techy, just because your concert with your young doctor was cut short."

"That's not a report."

"Sir, we came into the gravity well of an uncharted black star," said Hunter.

Yao appeared in the lower corner of the monitor. The engine room was filled with smoke behind her. "The engines are down. The gravity well of the star caused a pulse in the warp core. We had to vent or the whole system would have blown."

"Sir," said Smith. "We're being dragged back towards the black star. The impulse drives aren't enough to compensate."

Sherlock tapped his fingers on the arm of his command couch, suddenly having a visceral sense of John sitting on his lap while on that seat, and he had to shift to suppress his arousal.

He decided to focus on his irritation, "Do I need to come down to engineering and help you do a cold start of the engine so we are not all crushed to death?"

"No," came the somewhat curt reply, "Engineering's got this."

After a few moments, there was a lurch. A familiar feeling of sliding and falling, as the warp engines were cold started and they were sling shot around the black star's gravity well.

The stars in the monitor blurred white until finally fading into the familiar sight of Jupiter.

"Congratulations. You've gotten us to Earth a day early. Bring us into Earth orbit."

However, even an imbecile could have identified that there was something wrong as they approached Earth. The moon base was nothing more than a small collection of domes. The night side of Earth didn't shine with lights. A few small places here and there on the North and South American continents were picked out, and other than that the planet was in darkness. Clouds shrouded most of South America and Europe.

Holden said, "Sir, I'm only getting a few scattered radio signals. I can't raise Starfleet Command, or anyone. There's an enormous amount of radioactive interference."

"The stars are wrong," said Hunter. She tapped a few calculations and turned around. "Sir, we're no longer in the 24th century. We're in mid 2040."

As she spoke a dozen missiles arched up through the clouds over Northern France. They made their slow way over Europe. Hunter tapped some controls. "Correction. June 24th, the bombing of the New Delhi. In a few minutes sixteen million will be dead with another twenty who'll die of radiation sickness."

"Fuck!" said John succinctly.

Smith's hands moved over the weapons controls. The Bakerstreet's lasers flashed. Three times. Taking out three of the missiles.

Sherlock jumped up and yanked Smith out of her chair. He glared at her.

Hunter said, "Vi, what were you doing?"

"Saving all those people," said Smith brokenly, as the missiles made their downward arcs. They landed in a dense formation. Glowed white beneath the clouds as nine mushroom clouds fought with each other to reach the sky.

"She could have saved almost forty million people, or don't you care?" said Donovan.

"We almost changed history." Hunter laid out a course for beyond the moon's orbit. "The factions had orbital capabilities this century."

Sherlock took navigation as some additional missiles made their lazy way towards the Bakerstreet.

The missiles headed out into the vastness of space to be some later era's navigational hazard.

"Did you enjoy that?" asked Donovan. "Did it make the little khan in you happy? Did causing the deaths of all those people get you off?"

"Not particularly," said Sherlock. He had no idea why anyone could enjoy the flash incineration of so much potential, or even more so chose to make that choice.

He stood to allow Smith to retake her station. He glanced at the screen. The death toll was likely unchanged given the over commitment of nuclear weapons he'd just witnessed.

"Donovan, what is your problem?" asked John.

"What did you say?" Donovan stood up and crossed her arms.

"Donovan, what the fuck is your problem?" John stood up. He was bristling with energy. "Why is everything about being an Augment? If we'd landed in 1990s, then fine. Eugenic Wars. All on the big bad Augments. Khans running around fighting each other. Thirty to Thirty-five million dead. But this is WWIII. Six hundred million dead. That's not on Augments. That's Normals all the way."

 _Hearth fires flared to life all over Sherlock's memory palace._ But still he said, "Your defense is unnecessary. I know what I am and am not responsible for." The burdens of blood that he carried. The past wasn't his. Only the future. Always the future.

"Perhaps," said Hudson, "We should all calm down and consider some next steps." She looked at Sherlock. "Perhaps we should check to see how the engine room is doing?"

As it happened the engine room was doing very poorly. "Half the isolinear chips are blown and don't even get me started on the [isopalavial interface](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Isopalavial_interface)," said Yao.

"Can we replicate replacements?" asked Donovan.

Sherlock stared at her. "If we want to blow up the ship. The energy matrices of those parts make them inherently unstable for replication."

"We're going to have to go down to Earth and get some raw materials to manufacture new parts," said Yao. "Unless we all want to take up residence in the 21st century."

"We could try for Vulcan," said Donovan.

"That would take a long time on sub-light engines," said Yao. "There's a planet full of materials. We just have to go down and get them."

"Just a planet at the most genocidal period of its history," said Hunter. "To quote my granny, _Boyah_."

Sherlock said, "Hunter, since you're the most knowledgeable about this era, you'll be with the away team with Watson, Donovan, Yao, and myself."

"Commander, none of the Augments on the crew should go," said Hunter.

He stared at her. "Are you suggesting we send Sh'Alaack, an Andorian, to a pre-contact world? Or perhaps you would are proposing we put a hat on Mr. Stonn to hide the shape of his Vulcan ears?"

She stared back. "I'm serious. anti-Augment sentiment was at its height during this era. At best, you'll be killed on sight. Worst experimented on."

He rolled his eyes. "I shall of course disguise us." After all, he couldn't trust the rest of them to complete the mission without him.

Yao frowned at him. "But sir, it's not good tactics for us to go. There are other crew who could take our place." Pinched her mouth closed and looked almost frightened to have contradicted him. _Five indicators of verbal abuse from previous commanders. Correlated with her participation in Augment Social events on board. Possibly a result of her Augmentation, but some factors didn’t correlate._

"Fine, Yao, you'll stay on board. All the more reason for me to go. I have the experience to identify needed items." He didn't want to spend another moment in discussion.

He spritzed John with his obfuscator blend and them himself. They were dressed in raggedy clothes from the replicator. He smudged John's cheek artistically and picked up a hooded robe.

John looked at him. "Where's my hooded cloak?"

"You don't need it." Sherlock swirled his cloak on.

Hunter selected a likely spot in North America. As Chief McCarthy beamed them down, Sherlock said, "To the murder planet."

They appeared in a dank alley.

Hunter looked at her tricorder. "The remnants of the U.S. military depot are this way." She pointed down the ramshackle street. "Even if it's been thoroughly looted, there will be materials we can refine for what we need."

They only made it thirty feet before a rough group of men stopped them. Their leader, a gap toothed thug said, "Nice toy you got there. Japanese is it? Think I'll have it." He flashed a projectile weapon.

Sherlock tensed from under the cover his hood. There were at least ten of them. John could take one or two. He would have to take the rest.

A wide beam flare of a phaser took them all down. Donovan put her phaser away.

"That was the opposite of subtle," said Sherlock.

She shrugged and said in an acid tone, "Just didn't want you to alter history or anything."

They kept moving. They reached the remnants of a checkpoint. A man in his late sixties stood in the guard house holding a long projectile weapon. _Old break in his right leg, early onset arthritis, and the pealing skin of radiation exposure._ "If you wants in the depot, you gotta pay the toll."

Sherlock looked at Hunter. She opened her rucksack. "Four MREs do it."

"Got one with chocolate cake?" asked the man.

"Chocolate Ice Cream."

"Welcome to Freedom Base." He smiled at them genially.

There was a teaming market in one of the old bunkers. Sherlock was not the only hooded figure. He counted at least thirty interdicted substances being exchanged. In the modern era. Interdicted in the future.

In the past, there were no rules.

Donovan pointed at a few of the figures in thinner clothes than the rest. They had either As or Os branded onto their foreheads. "What's going on with them?"

Sherlock had to wonder about the safety of the ship if this was the level of Donovan's mental acuity.

"They're Augments, who've been surgically gender assigned and then sterilized," whispered John. "It's a whole sight worse to see when it's not in a play."

Hunter said, "They're slaves."

"Indentured servants to play for their crimes following the Khans," said Donovan.

John looked significantly at a teenager.

They worked their way around the warehouse. Trading food and small replicated goods for the materials they needed. They were almost all the way through Yao's list, when the teenager that John had pointed out earlier attempted to slit open the back of Sherlock's knapsack.

He had the teen's wrist in a vise grip before the knife had made more than an appearance. "We'd rather not be robbed." Unfortunately, his hood fell back, revealing his face.

An old Augment – the teen's minder no doubt – gasped. "My Lord." _East Midlands accent._ They sank to their knees. "It's our Lord, Khan Brittanus come to save us."

"You have me mistaken." Sherlock released the teen and pulled up his hood. "I am no one."

"I said you would return to rescue us. Take us to the stars." They held their right arm. There was an old faded tattoo with a number on it. He felt sick.

_In the Portrait Gallery, Mummy's picture said, "In the Khanates, we numbered those born to our Betas so we would know them. The Betas after we left took up the custom for a very different reason."_

The Augment yelled, "We're his chosen people too," as the teen tugged at their arm.

The crowd was looking at them. Muttering angrily. There were the ominous clicks of various weapons.

The teen said, "Auntie, shut it," before their blood and brain matter was spattered on the teen's face.

"We're done with subtle," said Donovan. "Hunter, on my six." She fired her phaser in a wide beam stun blast, just as the pops of projectile weapons started. They took shelter behind a fallen slab of cement.

"What was that about," said John firing off a shot.

_Sherlock spent a moment yelling in the Portrait Gallery, before deciding that a variation on the truth was the best course._

"As you know, I resemble Khan Brittanus. It would seem an elderly person with nasal issues mistook me for them."

Hunter tapped her com, but Donovan said, "That won't work, Ensign. There's too much shielding around us."

A voice said, "Give us Khan, and we'll let you go. Otherwise, we'll throw a grenade and sort the pieces out."

Sherlock looked at John's worried face and thought, "If that's the last I see of him, good enough." It would have been maudlin to kiss him goodbye, so he didn't. He jumped easily onto the concrete, who knew what Donovan thought of that and said, "I'll come down, when they're out."

"No," shouted John.

He called back, "Fix the engines. I'll find a way to signal you. If I don't return in seven days, then head home without me." It was likely he wouldn't make it. But he might.

"We need to get these supplies to the ship." Donovan stood up pointing her phaser at the crowd. Hunter all but dragged John through the large room.

When they were out of sight, he grinned. "Let us begin." He jumped down.

All told, he did poorly. They were malnourished with no training.

_He could hear Mycroft telling him from the Portrait Gallery that he should have been able to take all of them when he was eight. That he should have expected the tranquilizer gun._

He stumbled. Another shot. Then a third.

"Christ! That was enough tranq to take down an elephant. He's an Augment all right."

As he fell unconscious, he heard a man with a Middle American accent ask, "Think this here's Khan Brittanus? Seems awful young."

And the reply, "Does it matter? As long as Colonel Green thinks he is and is willing to pay for him."


	3. John POV

John argued with Donovan for three hours, but she wouldn't budge. "The freak made his choice. We can't risk the lives of anyone else on this ship."

Which was fine. Dandy. Fucking dandy. Not as if they couldn't tell where the great big tit was. His subcutaneous transponder was working fine.

John went to sickbay.

Julian said, "I heard about Sherlock. How are you doing? Do you need someone to talk to?" He looked at what John was doing. "Why are you filling a bag with vitamins and medicines?" John reflected that Julian asked a lot more questions since they'd turned on his curiosity.

"Because I need something to trade." John held up an ampule. "This one is a sedative."

"That's a little outside the Hippocratic Oath? Not to mention messing with the timeline."

"I'm not bringing the cure for the common cold. Only things they would have had already." John did not mention the three phasers that he'd liberated from the armory. The one down his pants was especially cozy, but at least it would be the last place anyone would look.

He made his way to the shuttle bay.

Yao was standing there, arguing with Donovan.

He said, "What are you doing here?"

Donovan spat out, "This idiot wants to go down to the planet to rescue the Commander, but as I've explained to her, she needs to stay here and repair the FUCKING Ship!"

Yao stood at perfect attention. "If I had gone with you, the Commander wouldn't have been captured." She looked wildly around the room. "If I completed the formulation correctly, we would not have travelled back in time."

John didn't see how one more Augment would have helped, unless she had secret martial arts training along with her engineering skills. He hated to say it, but, "Donovan's right. You're needed here." He held up his rucksack. "I'm going and you're not stopping me."

"Not stopping you." Donovan lifted her chin. "We don't need you to repair the ship and get over a hundred people home." She tapped the phaser on her hip. "And I'm going to help you."

John couldn't quite believe it, but wasn't going to argue. He met Yao's eyes, "You repair the Bakerstreet, yeah?"

"I will accomplish my appointed task," said Yao raising her chin. "But if you fail, I will go down to the planet."

John climbed into shuttlepod 221B. Donovan sat next to him in the co-pilot's seat. "Do you know how to fly this?"

He laughed harshly. "I'm studying to be a doctor. Not a pilot. But there is such a thing as auto pilot."

She rolled her eyes. "Here," and traded seats with him.

They were minutes into the flight before he couldn't take another moment. "You don't even like Sherlock, Commander Holmes, why are you going?"

"Think I'm going to let that smug bastard sacrifice his life for mine, think again." Donovan glared at the control. "Now shut it. I'm in security, not piloting. I need to concentrate."

They flew low over the landscape to avoid detection. It was nothing like the Belgium that John had visited. It wasn't green and rolling. The land was rilled as a result of explosions. Churned and muddy. Lines of barbed wire lay over ditches full of half buried bodies.

They flew over a smokestack churning out fine white ash. Outside the factory, people were huddled together in pens. Donovan said, "I don't want to know what that ash is do I?"

"You do not," said John. He did not say that not all the people in those pens were Augments. They either had mutations from radiation poisoning, commonly occurring mutations in Humans, and, yes, Augments, as well. There'd been a period for about fifty years when every major vid had been about WWIII. Donovan was over a hundred years old. She either had never seen any cinema, or was dead inside.

She was with him. He was voting for not dead.


	4. Sherlock POV

Sherlock awoke naked. Surrounded by military men. They were wearing the uniforms of the Eastern Coalition. It was not far of a deduction to know that man in front of him with the colonel's pips was Colonel Green.

"Khan Brittanus, as I live and breathe." He held his hands up. "Rejoice my friends. A devil has been delivered to us." He struck Sherlock across the face. "A demon in Human shape."

"All resemblance to the contrary," said Sherlock, "I am not Khan Brittanus. I would be a very well preserved seventy-year old if I were. Additionally, they are an omega, which I am not."

"See how the devil lies," said Colonel Green. He struck Sherlock again. It didn't hurt. Not much. "See how that barely affected him. They think they're better than us. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. They want to replace us." He sliced a knife down Sherlock's chest. A wound opened. He bled for a minute or two and then his body, excellent machine that it was, designed to survive in wars, repaired itself. Green shoved the blade into Sherlock's belly. Quite probably damaging any number of organs. He pulled it out. "But we're not going anywhere. You can't replace us."

As Sherlock began to heal and the Colonel became truly creative, he reflected that this was not how he'd imagined dying.


	5. John POV

They came to the location where the transponder was sending its signal. A medieval castle perched on the top of a ridge. "Dramatic much," he said.

 "Where there's a base, there's a bar below the base."

"Lay on Macduff," said John. They split up once they arrived at a bar charmingly named Two-Dick Dick's. Donovan chatted with the locals. John took up a spot at the bar.

He'd gotten as far as ordering piss that pretended to be beer, when he spotted the woman. She lifted an ID badge from the pocket of a soldier as she poured as his beer. He was too busy looking down her shirt to do much more than leer, but John noticed. Seemed there was someone else with the same agenda they had.

He glanced over at Donovan. She'd seen the same thing. They didn't have long to wait. The woman abandoned her apron and headed out the back. Donovan was already waiting for her. John closed the pub door behind them on the alley. He said, "Seems we have the same idea. Get into the castle."

"I don’t know what you mean," said the woman.

Donovan plucked the ID badge out of her pocket. "Then I guess you were just waiting to return this."

Suddenly, the woman sniffed. Looked at John. "Whatever you're wearing is wearing off."

John narrowed his eyes. Did the thing Sherlock was always telling him to do. She was healthier than most of the folks in the bar, barring the off duty soldiers, but she couldn't be getting much more in the way of food. She was wearing vanilla perfume, which was an odd thing to spend money on in a post-apocalyptic world. It had been hot in the pub, but she was wearing a long sleeved shirt.

He said, "If I looked up your sleeve, would I see a number?"

 "All you'd see is the tattoos of flowers." She smiled back. "That's me. The lady of the flowers. Names change, but the flowers still grow."

John's heart skipped a beat.

He knew every line of the Lady of the Flowers. Had even played a few parts in the play when they'd put it on in a colony with a high concentration of Augments. This was his eleven generations back grandmother. This was Anthea, the Lady of the Flowers. He looked around, but there was no merry band of cohorts. Just garbage.

He said, "I'm just trying to help a friend. He's been taken prisoner at the castle." Because that would be guaranteed to get her help.

"Could be I just picked up that badge," said Anthea.

Or perhaps not.

"Could be," said John feeling strangely giddy.

"Could be you're agents of Colonel Green looking to catch me out."

"Could be," said John. He really wanted to hum a few bars of "A World Gone Mad."

"Oh for fuck's sake," said Donovan. "Colonel Green's men would shoot you for having a flower tattoo where there could be a number. So, you know we have a friend in the castle. Who are you looking for?"

After a long silence, she said, "My brother." "I was lucky enough to be born recessive. No obvious augmentation, but Billy wasn't so lucky. Mum kept him in an attic space she knew about. When she died, I kept up caring for him. But…someone betrayed us. At first he was sent to the camps, but recently, he's been moved to Namur castle. They do experiments on Augments there. I've got to get him out."

John swallowed because that meant this was before all the adventures. All the daring escapes. The romance with the Analyst, who planned all her adventures, which eventually resulted in a really beautiful duet and a child. The duel over Reichenbach falls with Colonel Green, which probably hadn't actually happened, but made a great scene. Before any of that.

This was the adventure that started it all.

The one that ended in Billy's death and Anthea meeting the Analyst.

It also meant that it was fully within John's capability to so badly fuck up history that his entire family never existed – not to mention fucking up the Augment Underground and anyone that Anthea had rescued.

"If you have a way in, we have the firepower and an exit strategy," John found himself saying. Shuddering to think what Mum would think of what a hash he'd made of the Blue Omega's line.


	6. Sherlock POV

Sherlock faded in and out of consciousness. He couldn't have told if days or weeks had passed. Certainly, at least a day. They'd harvest his liver earlier. He could feel it growing back. Given the xenophobic tendencies of Colonel Green, it seemed unlikely they were intending to use it for a transplant.

Perhaps it was for dinner.

They had shifted to whipping him. He looked up through the tangles of his hair. Finally, he saw an opening. He said, "Your wife is sleeping with your brother."

The man paused on his backstroke.

"You suspect, of course." Sherlock tilted his head to get a look from the eye not currently growing back. "She's stopped pressing your uniform. She used to pack your lunch, but now has your daughter who is addicted to peanut butter pack your lunch. You hate peanut butter and your wife knows this."

"Why do you say she's sleeping with my brother?"

"Because the picture of your infant son has brown eyes. Your eyes are blue. Her eyes are blue. Your brother's are brown. She could be sleeping with your father, it's true, but it's more likely that it's your brother." He licked his lips. "If you go home now, you'll likely find them together." He twisted on his chains. "I'll hang right here, shall I."

The man snarled and ran up the dungeon stairs.

Sherlock twisted. Braced himself and dislocated his thumb. He repeated the trick with his left hand and dropped to the ground. Pushing them back before he could heal.

A figure appeared at the top of the stairs. Sherlock melted back into the shadows only to stop and stare. "Mycroft?"

Just as the man said, "Mother, I just had word that you'd returned."

They stared at each other circling under the stark illumination of the sole light in the room. Mycroft's skin was the wrong color. Lacking the slight tinge of green in his brother's skin tone. His scent was slightly different as well.

"You're not Mother." Given Sherlock wasn't an omega a single sniff should have been enough to differentiate him.

"And you're not Mycroft."

"I beg to differ on that point."

Sherlock looked at the man who was and was not his older brother by any number of ways of thinking.

"Ah, you know a different Mycroft. Your eyes give everything away. Good to know Mummy holds me in high enough regard to clone me. Not enough to take me with them, but the way they left wasn't exactly the best of circumstances."

Sherlock tilted his hand back and forth. After all, if Mummy had done quite a lot of tinkering with Mycroft mark II. "Do you know a Euros?" It was a shot in the dark. In a dark dungeon. With one eye yet to grow back.

"Where is Mother?"

"On a sleeper ship flying at sublight speeds some forty-four years out of the Sol system. So, somewhat beyond your help or for providing any help."

"I don't know a Euros." This Mycroft could be lying, but Sherlock didn't think so. That was something at least. Euros came later.

"Now as pleasant as this discussion is," Mycroft gestured at the stairs, "shall we?"

"We shall."


	7. John POV

Anthea's guy was a plumber. Castles were, it seemed, very imposing, but had terrible drains. They all put on plumbers outfits and went to fix the castle's fix almost daily issue with shit. At least it masked whatever scent John did or didn't have.

Anthea drove the van. A thing that ran on gasoline like something in a movie.

The guards waved them past. They went deep into the castle. They had reached their lower basement when they came face to face with Sherlock and, of all people, Mycroft.

Sherlock looked dreadful. John quickly ran a scan. They'd done something to his left eye and his liver was severely damaged.

"Interesting," said Mycroft, who was wearing some sort of disguise complete with scar on his left cheek. He plucked the medical tricorder from John's hands. "Very interesting."

"No time," said Donovan. She was looking at her own tricorder. "There three guards coming around the corner in three, two, one." They stunned them, since claiming Sherlock and Mycroft as plumbers would be next to impossible.

"Very interesting," said Mycroft.

"Could you please desist in technological displays?" asked Sherlock wearily.

John ignored the git. Gave him a quick wide range vaccination hypospray and a tissue stimulator. He didn't like the look of his left eye.

"So, very interesting." Mycroft laughed softly.

Sherlock groaned.

"We still have to do go down and find my brother," said Anthea.

John knew, he's sung the chorus for the song, that Anthea's brother was dead. Hanging like meat from a hook, like Tammud in the epic of Innanna, or at least that's where Great-grandpa had taken his literary inspiration.

Still he couldn't say that. He lifted his tricorder. "The way is clear down into the next level."

He led the way. The first cell was empty. The second cell held a half dead woman hanging limply by one arm. The other was missing. She would live. He knew the tale. Kate would be Anthea's right hand woman.

Donovan hissed. "We're changing history."

John grinned. "We're really not."

Sherlock groaned and Mycroft laughed.

They skipped the cell where Sherlock had been kept. There was only one cell left. Inside was a pit. In that pit, was a thin shivering man. A living shivering man holding a five year old child.

"Billy!" Anthea helped him out of the pit.

John couldn't very well shout, "Stop! We're changing history!" But he thought it. Really loudly. So loudly that Sherlock glared at him and Mycroft laughed some more, which was really getting on John's nerves.

Anthea's too by any indication. "What is so funny?"

"Hope is inherently funny," said Mycroft. "It bubbles up like champagne in the veins."

"Unless it's making you reckless like cocaine," said Anthea, which was… really too much. John covered his mouth with his hand. They made their way down through the castle. The tricorders helped, but with so much stone they could only do so much. They ran into a patrol.

John had an idea. Simple. Easy. Horrible. He handed Billy his com and said, "Two to beam up on my com." Golden energy enveloped Billy and his son, while Anthea screamed, "No!"

She went a little mad. It was something to see someone with that much augmentation. A full quarter of her ancestry. She killed the guards. Wrote Billy's name up on their corpses with their own blood which was… historical of her.

Donovan, who had restricted herself to a fight with one guard, said, "We don't have time for this."

"No we entirely have time for this," said Mycroft very strangely. "Colonel Green's headquarters. A blow for justice. Provided that we now make our escape." His smile was like the shadow puppet of a smile.

Still, Anthea nodded at him. "Yes, provided."

They came to where they'd left their barrels. Two of them. Two expected escapees. Stuffed Sherlock and Kate into them.

Mycroft looked very amused.

"We don't have another barrel for you."

"No need," said Mycroft pulling out a billfold and displayed a badge. "I'm from the office of internal review in London." He said almost gently, "I do their taxes. Or at least they think I do."

This comment made almost no sense, so John pushed a barrel.

The guards at the gate said, "We have to look at all containers."

Donovan said, "Sure. It's full of raw sewage and this really strange green stuff that had even my friend here giving up her breakfast. We'll be dumping it somewhere away from your ancient sewer lines. But if you want us to open it up, well, I hope you didn't like your last meal."

Donovan made an evocative gesture next to her mouth.

The guards elected not to look in the barrels. They made their way back to the van. Sherlock groused about things in his hair the entire drive back into town. Mycroft sat in the front next Anthea. He kept laughing.

"What is so funny?" said Anthea, her hands white around the wheel.

"He looks like our mother, sounds nothing like them, smells like garbage and…" Mycroft sighed, "is the most hopeful sight I've seen in forty years." He spread his hands. "Clearly, clue by clue, brick by brick, we shall survive."

He turned to Anthea. "You appear to be a very resourceful young woman, and as there are few resources left, it is worth my while making your further acquaintance." They fell to talking the long horrible drive back into the village. The entire time, John was certain that they would be discovered.

And there was the question of a really great uncle and many times removed cousin that he'd just beamed to the Bakerstreet.

By the time when they arrived at the drop off point, Anthea said. "Actually, I'm going with him." She pointed a thumb at Mycroft.

John was fine with that. There were a few elements to the story that he wasn't sure made any sense, but he was fine with that.


	8. Sherlock POV

Sherlock spent the entire flight back to the ship attempting to calculate the historical damage of allowing a twenty-first century Mycroft to see so much future technology. There were too many variables.

Ultimately, it was not surprising that John had come to find him. They were it seemed, after all that happened, once more friends.

But that Donovan had accompanied him was shocking. He analyzed her profile, but it gave the same information that it always did. As she landed the shuttle, she said, "Trying to figure out why I came?"

"I cannot make conclusions without information."

"I still think you're an self-important prick, but…" her gaze flickered over him. "Seeing those kids at that market. The way those people didn't hesitate to kill that old woman." She shrugged. "Maybe Normals are arseholes too." She snorted. "Which leaves me somewhere in between self-important prick and arsehole. All buggered."

He nodded. There was nothing more to say.

There was worse to come. John said, "I had to beam up Billy to the ship. Um… so yeah, Anthea was my great something grandmother."

Donovan turned from where she was piloting the craft. "How is that possible?"

"Time travel," said John. "Look, she was kind of famous. There's all sorts of family stories about her. That's how I know that saving the woman missing her left arm was history, but her brother Billy, he was supposed to die. I'd never even heard he had a kid. Funny thing was, she was also supposed to meet my great something grandfather on that mission. The Analyst, but history must have gotten that bit wrong."

Sherlock decided that he would forget what John has just said. Delete entirely the idea that Mycroft I was in some distant way, three hundred years apart, related to John.

Deleted!

Completely.

"But I guess that happens later." John shrugged.

"We can't take them with us," said Donovan.

"What do you mean?" John had a mutinous look. "They died in the past. They can live in the future."

"Oh, so bombing half of India is fine, but if it's a relative, you want to take them into the future."

"I would take all of them, but I can't. Just like I can't go back and grab everyone who died from the bubonic plague. Like I can't save every refugee from every war. I can save these two. They were supposed to die. We could either leave them there or take them with us."

"Your ship and your decision is it?" said Donovan sourly.

Sherlock could still barely see out of one eye and he was not enjoying the sensation of body parts regrowing themselves. He just wanted to lay his head down in John's lap and sleep. Best friends did that sort of thing when they weren't feeling well. So that's what he did.

"Ta," said John.

Sherlock had to get up when arrived at the ship. Yao was strangely excited to see him. Perhaps. His head hurt, and his vision was somewhat monocular.

John made him deal with the very confused Billy, who had been placed in the brig and his terrified child had been taken away to be given injections by Julian.

John's hand clenched where he was half holding Sherlock. "What do you think you're doing taking his child away from him!" said John.

"He needed his shots," said Cho in a bewildered tone. She'd never been on the other side of one of John's flashes of temper. "Anyway we can't keep a kid in the brig."

"Release Billy," said Sherlock tiredly. He just wanted to lay down. He lay down on the biobed while John explained to Billy and his son, Connor that they were going to get to immigrate to the future.

"What will I do?" Billy looked around him. "In a future full of wonders."

"Well," John's tone was clearly stalling. Sherlock opened his eyes and found that he'd gained most of his vision back. He blinked, watching John's face fold as he sought an answer. "I'm not actually sure. We can't actually admit we changed history, but… umm… if you want to stay on board, we've got space for you."

Oddly, it was Donovan, who said, "How about he help watch the kids. He's got one. We've got several babies. It'll give the Andorians a break."

Sherlock sat up and looked at her.

"What?" She crossed her arms. "At the rate we're going, we could use a part time nanny."

Billy kissed his child's head. "I don't even know what to say."

There was still the matter of getting to that future. Many calculations.

But in the end, it worked perfectly. Smith did a more than adequate job swinging the ship around the sun. Soon, the Earth of the correct century appeared in their monitors. Lit up night sky, lack of nuclear winter clouds, moon base and all.

Sherlock spent his shore leave in the small town under the castle where he'd been held. The castle was a replica as the original had been bombed during WWIII. There was a turbo lift. Mycroft did not appear while he idly looked through the gift shop in the basement.

John pinged him once. A number of the crew were going to at an establishment in New Orleans that Hebron had selected. He looked at the staff coming in and out of the kitchen. "It seems a waste of energy to spend time cooking when anything they produce could just as easily be replicated."

"Nothing in this restaurant can be replicated," said their proprietor, Joseph Sisko from whom the restaurant got its name of Sisko's Creole Kitchen. "Can't replicate love." He chatted briefly with Lucy, who was some sort of relative of a relative. Dull.

Joseph seemed to regard Sherlock as a challenge at that point and brought out a host of small dishes while John laughed at him.

Sherlock could endure the dishes if it came with laughter.


	9. Sherlock POV

Soon enough, the Bakerstreet was ready to go.

A number of the ensigns were promoted to junior grade lieutenants. Crewman were advanced a level, rotated out altogether as Starfleet continued to fill in the fleet. Hunter and Smith were promoted.

None of that was important.

John was promoted to Lieutenant, Senior grade. Sherlock composed a melody to celebrate.

As he walked onto the bridge, the new communications tech, a Dopterian, left his station to greet Sherlock, holding out his hand. The man said, "It's such a pleasure to finally meet you. I heard so much about you at the Academy, of course. I look managing the communications on your ship." Sherlock stared down at the man's hand. "Oh, where are my manners? I'm Jim. Ensign Jim Moriarty, at your service."

_Boring. Non-regulation wrist band in rainbow colors, Rigilean musk cologne, the obvious interest. An Augment groupie. It happened. Even in Starfleet where the reverse was so often the case._

Sherlock walked away from him and sat down in his seat.

Hudson said, "Oh, don't mind him dear. He's always like that. My, aren't you an opaque one."

There was some sort of babble from Moriarty about not having any thoughts to speak of.

Sherlock paid no attention. He was too busy composing music for his next dinner with John.

**Author's Note:**

> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tomorrow_is_Yesterday_(episode)  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Phillip_Green  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/World_War_III  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Dopterian  
> https://io9.gizmodo.com/5238315/6-theories-of-time-travel-in-star-trek
> 
> Congratulations, if you've made it to this story and read all the intervening ones, you can consider yourself to have finished season two. 
> 
> Okay, that's actually a concept that didn't completely survive the writing of these. Mainly because some "seasons" ended up with a lot more plot than others. However, as you may have figured out by now, Sherlock is a good deal more familiar with Khan Brittanus than the average Augment, and there's a reason he looks so similar.
> 
> As to other secrets, "Lay on, Macduff."


End file.
